“Chinese gold and silver demand has been phenomenal ahead of the New Year holiday,”

said Adrian Ash, head of research at BullionVault.com, a leading online service for gold bullion trading and ownership, citing comments from dealers among others.

Shipments have been “heavy” and they began very early, in mid-December, he said.

This is an excerpt from an article by Myra P. Saefong, of MarketWatch inSan Fransisco (MarketWatch) — Gold prices have lost around $75 an ounce this year but analysts are unfazed by the drop, with many betting the slump in prices will soon be cut short as the Chinese New Year feeds an increase in global demand that’s destined to last.

“We are entering a period of strong seasonal growth in gold demand and Chinese New Year is a big part of that,”

said Brien Lundin, editor of Gold Newsletter. “Physical demand has been supporting the gold prices on the downside even during the typical slack periods, and I expect that upcoming increase in demand will also support the price, but at higher levels.”

The Chinese New Year, also known as Lunar New Year, begins on Feb. 3 this year and ends with the Lantern Festival 15 days later.

“Chinese New Year is the time of year when the Chinese share gifts, usually money in little red envelopes,” said Mark Leibovit, chief market strategist for VRTrader.com. “Perhaps the little red envelopes will be a bit heavier this year.”

But the recent spike in China’s demand for gold goes well beyond providing gifts to celebrate the new year.

Reader Comments (4)

I confirm continued major demand with official bank-issued silver and gold pieces well above and beyond anything I've seen in the last 4 years of experience accumulating certian examples of those official mintages (of course, snake mintages)...counterfeiting is alive and well but once you learn what is official it's quite easy to tell the fakes from the officials...the expert counterfeiters, if there are any, devote their time to popular US coinage or Pandas, not niche markets like mine...premiums may back-off after the Chinese New Year but not so much with the quite limited mintage #'s of the snake market...I fully expect trend to continue into the future...hands down my best gains have been all-things Asian...VietNam, Singapore, Tiawan, and China,,,I'm holding and NOT selling, period. Shorters can look elsewhere. I thank the powers that be I started collecting back in 2007 before the chinese "awakening"...the future is SHINNY there, folks...Keep up the excellent reporting gentleman...Snakeman Scott